Confederate veterans laid to rest on East Side

The Confederate Cemetery on Commerce Street covers nearly 3 acres and has more than 950 burials, including 215 Confederate veterans.

Do you know the history of the Confederate Cemetery No. 4, which is on North New Braunfels Avenue and Commerce Street? My father's great-grandfather is buried there. Do you know if all the soldiers are from Texas?

San Antonio's Confederate Cemetery is one of 31 city cemeteries listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Old San Antonio City Cemeteries District or East Side Cemetery Historic District. All of them are part of a royal Spanish land grant of 40 acres intended for burial grounds and subdivided in 1853 into city cemeteries numbered one through six.

For $1,000, the group got 2.75 acres, divided into 88 lots, each 24 feet by 33 feet, which sold for $50, according to J.B. Crowther, a past officer in Camp No. 143 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a successor organization for descendants.

“Most of the plots were purchased by San Antonio families who had a father or brother who had served in the Confederate Army,” Crowther said. “Veterans who were too poor to purchase a plot were buried at the expense of the Camp.” The first Confederate veteran to be buried there was J.H. Calvert in 1896; the last was James Thompson Clinkscales, who died in 1934 at age 93.

There are now more than 950 burials there, and Confederate veterans account for only 215. They came from “all the states whose men served in the Confederate Army and not just Texas,” says Crowther. Veterans who were born in and served in states other than Texas had “migrated to San Antonio later on, after the (Civil) War,” says Theresa Gold, a local historian and past officer of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Of the Confederates, more than 50 were officers, including three general officers. One of the most famous people interred there is legendary Texas Ranger John S. “Rip” Ford, a Texas Cavalry colonel who led troops in the Battle of Palmito Ranch, one of the last engagements of the Civil War.

Because the cemetery's lots accommodated multiple burials, not only veterans but their family members were buried there. “Children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of these Confederate veterans who served as soldiers, sailors and airmen in America's later wars are buried there as well,” says Crowther, including those who fought in the Indian Wars, World War I and World War II.

The local Sons of Confederate Veterans are the current caregivers of the property, “as cemeteries cannot be transferred to other owners,” says Eileen Lehmberg, a past officer of the Order of the Confederate Rose, a support group to the Sons. To be buried in the Confederate Cemetery now, she says, “One must have an ancestor who owned a lot there.” To inquire, contact David F. Sweeney, president of the Confederate Cemetery Association, at sweeney4@att.net.

To learn more about this and other city burial grounds, join the second annual Go! Historic SA Guided Running and Walking Tour of the historic East Side Cemeteries at 9 a.m. Oct. 27. Sponsored by the Office of Historic Preservation, the 90-minute tour will be grouped for runners and walkers and will include docents portraying some of the famous people buried in the cemeteries. Registration is $15 at www.sanantonio.gov/historic or on the day of the event. Meet and park for free at the Carver Community Cultural Center at 226 N. Hackberry St.; for details, call 215-9274.